The Transfer Tavern

45-year-old reportedly on Southampton’s radar as club eye Pellegrino’s replacement

Southampton supporters in the Transfer Tavern have been making a lot of noise in the last few hours following the news that their club have sacked manager Mauricio Pellegrino, with the Saints very much embroiled in a Premier League relegation battle.

The 46-year-old took over from the sacked Claude Puel during the summer with the brief to bring a more exciting and attacking style of football to St Mary’s, but the former centre-back did little to improve things on the pitch with just five Premier League wins to his name. And the final straw was Saturday’s poor 3-0 defeat against fellow relegation candidates Newcastle United at St James’ Park, with a Kenedy brace alongside a Matt Ritchie strike bringing to an end Pellegrino’s short time in charge of the Saints.

Subsequently, many of our resident Southampton fans have been pretty buoyant in the Tavern in recent times, and they are likely to be intrigued by a recent report from The Scottish Sun, which suggests that Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers is on their radar as a possible replacement for Pellegrino.

The 45-year-old took over at Parkhead back in the summer of 2016 and he has since been an absolute revelation in helping the Scottish giants win the domestic treble last season, a campaign in which they dropped just eight points en route to a new Scottish Premiership record.

And while they have suffered some domestic defeats this term, Rodgers’ men again look set for a seventh successive league title, and it appears that his fine work north of the border hasn’t gone unnoticed as reports suggest that he is on Southampton’s radar as they eye Pellegrino’s replacement.

But it very much remains to be seen whether they can indeed lure the Northern Irishman away from his job at Celtic Park.

Landlord’s verdict: Brendan Rodgers has done a fantastic job at Celtic in leading their dominance of Scottish football, helping them to the domestic treble last season and on course to possibly match that this time round as well.

And reports suggest that the 45-year-old’s efforts at Parkhead are attracting the interest of managerless Southampton, who are eyeing up a replacement for Mauricio Pellegrino, who was sacked as manager on Monday.

Clearly, it would be an attractive job for many a manager around the country, but there must be doubts whether Rodgers would consider leaving Celtic, whom he is developing into an even stronger force, for a Premier League relegation battle.